Days 14-17: Logan and beyond
Here's the kids at Golden Spike National Historic Site (http://www.nps.gov/gosp/). Some of y'all have visited this site, others have not--in a nutshell, it is the site where the first railroad from the west met the first one from the east. Their linkage made the first transcontinental railroad.
On Wednesday of this last week, my meeting took the afternoon off for some field trips. Bragg Family South took our own field trip, up Logan Canyon to the Bear Lake overlook:
This natural lake is a beautiful blue because it is shallow and has a light-colored bottom, and thus does an excellent job in reflect the clear blue skies of this high elevation lake. Our ultimate destination was Fossil Butte National Monument (http://www.nps.gov/fobu):
This pretty but rather unassuming butte contains the fossils of many different species of animals and plants. It had been part of an ancient lake, and is well-known for the fishes preserved in its rocks. My meeting wrapped up on Thursday afternoon, and we started our return trip to Arkansas, driving to just south of Salt Lake City. Today (Friday) we retraced our trip along US Highway 6 towards Price, Utah. We drove along the beautiful deserts of this part of Utah with a purpose--we were going to revisit the area that we found those fossils a couple weeks ago. First, a good picture of a prairie dog:
We found a bunch of additional fossils, and had a good morning in a pretty part of Utah. We continued south towards the red rock canyon areas of southern Utah. This absolutely gorgeous part of Utah contains a whole bunch of national parks, but we only had time for one park visit. Because of its close proximity to our route and the fact you can see a lot from the car, we chose Arches National Park (http://www.nps.gov/arch/). This national park is full of beautiful rock formations, but is best known for its namesake arches. Here, the kids and I pose in front of Double Arch:
This rock formation was famous before it appeared in the beginning of the 3rd Indiana Jones movie (remember the flashback scene, when a young Indy tries to foil some looters?), but it is always more impressive to see it in the real world. We climbed up the hill below the arches, and the kids had a great time scrambling over the rocks, but a summer thunderstorm blew up quickly (they've been getting more rain than usual in this area this year). Although we were disappointed we wouldn't get to see more of Arches, it led to a number of fantastic picture opportunities:
The sudden, heavy rain quickly ran off the bare rock landscapes, creating literally dozens of instant waterfalls along the formations:
You could definitely see why they warn people about walking in the canyons of the desert southwest when rain happens--all of the dry ditches and gullies we had driven by just a half-hour before were quickly filling with raging water full of sediments.
We should be home in a couple more days, so chances are the next report we'll give you is from Monticello.
On Wednesday of this last week, my meeting took the afternoon off for some field trips. Bragg Family South took our own field trip, up Logan Canyon to the Bear Lake overlook:
This natural lake is a beautiful blue because it is shallow and has a light-colored bottom, and thus does an excellent job in reflect the clear blue skies of this high elevation lake. Our ultimate destination was Fossil Butte National Monument (http://www.nps.gov/fobu):
This pretty but rather unassuming butte contains the fossils of many different species of animals and plants. It had been part of an ancient lake, and is well-known for the fishes preserved in its rocks. My meeting wrapped up on Thursday afternoon, and we started our return trip to Arkansas, driving to just south of Salt Lake City. Today (Friday) we retraced our trip along US Highway 6 towards Price, Utah. We drove along the beautiful deserts of this part of Utah with a purpose--we were going to revisit the area that we found those fossils a couple weeks ago. First, a good picture of a prairie dog:
We found a bunch of additional fossils, and had a good morning in a pretty part of Utah. We continued south towards the red rock canyon areas of southern Utah. This absolutely gorgeous part of Utah contains a whole bunch of national parks, but we only had time for one park visit. Because of its close proximity to our route and the fact you can see a lot from the car, we chose Arches National Park (http://www.nps.gov/arch/). This national park is full of beautiful rock formations, but is best known for its namesake arches. Here, the kids and I pose in front of Double Arch:
This rock formation was famous before it appeared in the beginning of the 3rd Indiana Jones movie (remember the flashback scene, when a young Indy tries to foil some looters?), but it is always more impressive to see it in the real world. We climbed up the hill below the arches, and the kids had a great time scrambling over the rocks, but a summer thunderstorm blew up quickly (they've been getting more rain than usual in this area this year). Although we were disappointed we wouldn't get to see more of Arches, it led to a number of fantastic picture opportunities:
The sudden, heavy rain quickly ran off the bare rock landscapes, creating literally dozens of instant waterfalls along the formations:
You could definitely see why they warn people about walking in the canyons of the desert southwest when rain happens--all of the dry ditches and gullies we had driven by just a half-hour before were quickly filling with raging water full of sediments.We should be home in a couple more days, so chances are the next report we'll give you is from Monticello.
Comments